Frank Romano: Hi, this is Frank Romano for whattheythink.com. The first event that I ever went to was on September 6, 1959. It was the, ready for this? It was the Seventh Educational Graphic Arts Exposition put on by the Craftsman’s Club and PIA. It was at the New York Coliseum and, by the way, they had just built the New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle and it was the bee’s knees. It was the greatest thing on earth, an exhibition center right in the heart of Manhattan. The reason I was there is I had just started working in the shipping department of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company so I went on the truck that delivered a lot of the stuff that we had on exhibit. In fact, the cab only held three people and a few of us actually rode in the back. That would not happen today but we rode in the back with a linotype machine, a line of film, some keyboards and a lot of other stuff. Again, the union guys did all the unloading and everything but we were there to move some of the small stuff in and to get everything organized in the booth. It was my first trade show and I was in awe. It was fantastic.

You can’t see this completely but it was on two levels. The old coliseum had a first floor and second floor and there was a mezzanine area where they had some exhibits. This is like a little time capsule of the printing industry. If you look at the companies today that are still around, Heidelberg is on this list, Kodak is on this list, Brandtjen and Kluge is on this list and a few others but that’s it. Most of the companies have come and gone. Addressograph Multigraph, many of you will remember them. By the way, companies that made wood type were on exhibit.

Companies in the typesetting industry were there. Intertype, of course, was there. Ludlow was there. All the companies that made hot metal equipment were there. Miehle-Goss-Dexter was there. Today the Goss Corporation still exists but MGD was a major manufacturer of sheet fed presses. You would not see the first Goss offset press exhibited until 1968. I’m pretty sure that’s the first year they did that and it was at the big Print 68 show. That was the first international show.

This was considered to be a regional show more or less but all these companies were national companies and people did come from around the United States to visit. The committee was headed by Gus Gigengack who was somewhat famous. He was the public printer and was a very vocal and visible public printer. He had become the president of the National Graphic Arts